Winning one could be a fluke.
Winning two is a promising sign, and a statement of intent.
But winning three? Three consecutive championships are a dynasty.
Year-over-year dominance, led by a core group, surrounded by fantastic and productive pieces. And each year, a dynasty tends to get better.

That trend is likely true for the Lions swim team.
Having won SPC for two years in a row now, the pressure was on to keep the streak going. Going into SPC, the Lions had one major obstacle standing in the way of their goal of a three-peat: St. Stephens, a team packed with nationally recruited swimmers. But, even though St. Stephens had some standouts in the pool, the Lions’ depth provided a much greater benefit.
“(St. Stephens) might get first (in an event), but we would get two, three and everything else,” senior captain George Hoverman said. “So just by points, the nine that you get for first versus the eight and seven you get for second and third, you end up with nine versus 15.”
With 32 swimmers qualifying in eight individual events and 25 of those making finals, the Lions finished with a total of 155 points, beating St. Stephens by 14 and Greenhill by 56 and continuing the streak for another year. The swimmers showed out, with many recording the fastest times of their seasons and some recording the fastest times in school history.
“A lot of people dropped a lot of time. The team, generally, this year has gotten faster. We broke five school records, and they have been accumulated for 10 to 20 years,” Hoverman said. “Our team this year was faster than any other year in St. Mark’s history.”
In order to reach that peak, though, the team had to endure a significant amount of growth and learning as a team, which all started with the core principles of head coach Trent Calder: communication, discipline and emotional control, in that order.
“Communication is king: without it everything else doesn’t matter. This starts with expectations of the guys, from practice dates, meet dates and getting them to understand the season flow so that they can be prepared for and ready to attack each opportunity,” Calder said.
But just having strong team communication isn’t enough to build a winning mindset.
For Calder, discipline is another key part of what it takes to be a winner.
“Motivation comes and goes, but discipline is the ability to get the job done at a high level, no matter what your motivation is,” Calder said. “It is easy to train hard when you feel good, but it is difficult to push yourself when you have a million other things on your mind.”
And finally, the ability to control one’s feelings and emotions helps to bring it all together.
If an athlete has mental fortitude, he can withstand even the most-pressurized moments like competing on the varsity team for crucial points at SPC.
“You cannot always control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it,” Calder said. “If something bad happens, like getting hit with a false start and being disqualified, are you going to let it affect your next three swims? Learn from it and move on. Likewise, when you are on a winning streak, do you maintain focus or just let the good times roll and then wonder why you get beat due to lack of focus?”
By instilling those core principles in his swimmers, Calder hopes to push them to be the best they can be, to achieve greatness.
“I didn’t come to St. Mark’s to be average. I came here to be great. To be great is not something that just happens. It’s a habit and attention to detail on the little things because those are what add up to be the big things,” Calder said. “Winning is a byproduct. It is a confirmation that you did the work, put your focus where it needed to be and the results speak to that.”
And clearly, it’s paying off.
Because of Calder’s competitive attitude and the hard work that his team put in all year, they were in pole position to retain their title for the three-peat.
“Since we had the depth this year, we knew going in that if we didn’t screw up, and we all swam our best, and we all dropped our times, which we knew we would, then we would probably win,” Hoverman said. “So it wasn’t a lot of pressure there, but at the same time, it was.”